shadow realms
by witchfingers
Summary: The Gods let the three Yamis build a new life from scratch. Keep or shed their human counterparts. Find deliverance, or darkness. What tempts them the most? /post-canon/
1. interstice

**_The Gods let the three Yamis build a new life from scratch. Keep or shed their human counterparts. Find deliverance, or darkness. What tempts them the most? [post-canon]_**

* * *

><p><strong><em>shadow realms<em>**

* * *

><p>if you and I are walking on the edge, you know, like on the blade of a sharp knife and then one falls, you see, like down the Victoria Falls, down down with the water to crash against the unforgiving rocks below, then; well,<p>

if you and I, if we're walking that edge, then, if we ever fall, will our blood spread out in the water

and scatter

to the drifts beautiful as a drop of ink in a crystal glass?

if you and I, if that happens, then we'll become one, entwined in a salty song of death and drops, forever.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**: a plot bunny I wanted to explore while waiting for inspiration for Coroner's Court. I love "what-if"s. Bear in mind this is only the introduction, later chapters make sense, you'll see. So far, i'd like to know what you think of the style. Stay fine!_


	2. the sun god and the anathema

**_the sun god and the anathema_**

**_._**

I heard the man was gone, but one can hear many things in the marketplace. Walked southwards to the barren lands,

walked eastwards, other said, to the red desert and the Red Sea yonder (and then; death.)

But when the hawk circled aloft and I heard the strangled cry of a jackal in the hunt, I knew, I knew for all my years of roaming that the man had gone,

like an outcast,

like a panther- the sands, they all cried, _westwards_, and I knew it to be true, because I smelt sweat and blood, and tears, in the air, and I know that the wind never lies.

If I could but wager his heart, I could tell if the stories were true- the rumors in the empty valleys; the superstition in the call of the morning breeze. The people in the village, scared, had presented offerings, trying in vain to appease a spirit too corporeal to be a threat anymore; to shattered to be imposing,

nothing but a man, and a man alone.

When I heard the man was gone, I did not fear, but acquiesce.

Fate calls to us by our names even when we have buried them, and it is too late to turn back when we answer, and when we do, our histories are circular and sealed, and so, now, even without the Millennium Key, I can tell you his story:

A handful of stars twinkle over my sleeping Al-Qahira, triumphant city of the thousand minarets, and he steals away into the desert like a cobra wounded, but ever poisonous. He has been reborn from a craft of shadows and ancient magic, without a scream, pain paralyzing each limb to make a movement a little death, but he does not rest- he is a lost, vacant creature, a night-child seeped into a den of sorcerers and guardians, and he knows it,

and he is afraid.

Stealing, he can do, somehow he clothes his bare body. He knew before from his time alive the means, and he treads through pain the way to the boundaries of the city, past the silent slums and the filthy alleyways, and he is through, suddenly roving into the desert like down beneath the Universal Blanket.

He breathes in, and it's cool, but dry, and he walks.

The sun rises, the sun sets again, and Nut spills her basket of stars with a love much more pure over the silvery desert than over the dying city.

He doesn't know hunger, he was not taught that when he had a body before, and now he feels a different kind of pain tearing inside of him, but he is not surprised, only tired, very tired.

On the third day, the midday sun blazes down on an expanse of sand without horizon, and a pilgrimage ceases.

A cry, such as no cry of anguish ever echoed in the naked eternity of the desert, pierces through the air as he falls down on his knees, burying tan and slim and strong fingers into the sand; but he won't become rooted to that which is barely above dust.

_Take me_, he pleads, _take me_, and he looks aloft to the primordial skies, blue like the mouth of the Nile- he cries in despair, and every ache in his body is tenfold as terrible because his head pounds like a curse. He was already punished, he longs not to be punished anymore.

He may only want to sleep the sleep that lasts forever.

_I took you, and now I gave you back_, he hears, a roar from the impolluted skies.

He has been answered- he has found Him and been found; and something akin to the hope of the fearless stirs inside his chest.

_Ra, take me back_, he insists.

The Sun God will not, he feels it in every wretched fiber of his being, and the pain, the drought, the _sun_ consume him so much he wishes he was naked again; then he could offer himself as a sacrifice and _take me, please_.

_With light, I cleansed your soul of evil_, the God tells him, and he, he sees only the midday sun shining over him, but what he _feels_, is the eternal shifting creation and re-creation of the world of perception. The God of Sun Ra shines like the purest gem before him, and he has never ceased bowing before him, begging...

_I am evil_, he thinks, and the God hears him, and then he does not know if he thinks or speaks or cries, _I cannot be if I am not evil, that is all I am._

With steps that shake the foundations of the Earth, Ra steps in the sand towards him, walks through him, scorches him dead, reborn and anew.

And he dies again, and he again is reborn, and he is, again, anew.

_You are, because I have made you. Now choose a name and serve me, _and the man once known as Dark Malik blinks his eyes to the old new world, where the first lights of twilight tinge the borders of his field of vision of colors too shimmering to be a mirage from the human world.

Naked, curled into a ball that represents a shell that will break, he exposes his tanned back to the goddess of the sky, and up there in the other world, she sees a young man with a tattoo too beautiful to have been made by human hands, the image of Ra, the Sun God.

When the night falls, he begins to return, somewhere...

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**: This is Shadi telling how Dark Malik came to be alive again, and how Ra spoke to him in the desert._

_Al-Qahira= El Cairo_


	3. the hundredth soul

**Important : these drabbles are in cronological order**

* * *

><p><strong><em>the hundredth soul<em>**

**_._**

Ryou cannot cope.

He's a good guy, you see, he's very decent and very polite and _loveable_, but he knows he's just warped and barren inside- and that's what _no one seems to notice and it drives him MAD_.

He cannot cope, you see, because now he doesn't know for sure if the dead ever really stay _dead_, and good and bad don't make any more any sense, and what does that make him? The space in between, the music in the elevator when all you want is either silence or conversation, but you get neither, so _shut up please _. He cannot cope. He's not even trying.

He doesn't want to give up, just _yet_, you see, because... because time is a barely conceptual notion, right?

What if he gave up and he just never waited _enough_?

He's waiting, I forgot to mention. He waits for...

He knew it since Yugi placed the Ring into its slot in the tablet, he could tell from the swell of violence in his chest and that so out-of-character need to scream, to _screech_, to rip the precious object from the other man's graps and clutch it to his heart and claim, "You can't have it, you can't have _him_... he's not ready to go just _yet_."

Him, the spirit, the Thief King, the presence; or just another figurine in his RPG board (he's got one in his soul room, did you know? One exactly like the one the _other him_ had made that one time, because Ryou had never seen such a _perfect_ board, such a perfect... scheme. It was beautiful in a deranged, pathetic way.)... whatever it is the name _he _chose to die by, Ryou knows that he was not ready to go, he was a man that loved life _so much_, and... well, how could he tell?

He could tell from his _soul_, that was _his _soul too, if you bothered to scrape off that veneer of time and Zork Necrophades and _revenge_... deep down at the bottom of the jar, Ryou saw the tanned man that sat, hugging his knees, as grain by grain the sand clock eroded it all away, and he slowly became no longer a prince, no longer a _king_, but raw, earthen Bakura... and they even shared the name.

How could he ever cope? He has not ever let _go_.

If he did... shuddering, he doesn't want to think of what would become of the memory (no! he was not a memory yet!) of the Spirit. The bad guy of the story... unless the story was not over.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**: What I mean when I say that they are in cronological order, is that not all Yamis will come back at the same time, you'll see. The first to return was Yami Malik because he was not really a reencarnation of anyone, and Ra decided to take matters into his own hands. _

_But it'll all will be explained later in a more sense-making way :P_

_(on a side note - this story is _my_ 99th soul! He, he, he.)_

Review? Please? I really care about your opinion...

_Edit: fixed a typo thanks to a wonderful review. I wish you'd left a name or a username... no matter, I'll write you a good response next chapter, "nobody" :)_


	4. son of Ra

_happy New Year!_

* * *

><p><strong><em>son of Ra<em>**

**_._**

There is a sort of desolate beauty in sand clocks, for the way that time is encased. Time cannot be encased, it is all an infirm structure.

When he awakes, he cannot tell where, or when, a thousand scorpions dash back to the silent solitude of their crevice-lairs; and he is well aware of the tiny wounds left by their tiny insect teeth, and as he sits up, he finds that pain is not so _good_ as he remembered it;

he stops to think, to rationalize, and he concludes he must be hungry, he must be thirsty, he must be...

Lost. He is lost.

By the trail of blurred steps he's left behind he thinks, he must have stumbled, he must have fainted, by the bloodied soles of his feet he knows he has walked far, but he does not know if he has walked good, and he knows something else. He will come to die, eventually.

He rolls to a side. He finds the vision of the sky refreshing as an old memory or two come to him like a quiet butterfly, a childhood of stone walls, dreams-that-were-not-his-own picturing a world of freedom and discovery; as he sees the sky, he would like to think of his failures and all the debts he has left behind.

But Ra has called, and he is not able not to answer; yet, his bones tell him, he will die.

And, shrouded in sand and the chants of the jackal, he will come to kneel before Ammit again, to await a judgement for the redemption he did not attempt.

Knowing this, I cannot remain a bystander.

The young man closes his eyes against the afternoon light and thinks he might smile and give his last thought to the Sun God, the only being to ever wish him good- soon to be let down. Going down? Yes, Dark Malik goes down without a struggle this time. Reborn in the dead of night, crawled to sacred ground to beg the mercy of a new death he was not granted. Unseen, never thought of.

After three days of search and three of lostness, he gives up.

.

_"Rishid," I say, and the man turns to assess me with a face of stone and clear conscience, and I would smile, but I never, when I tell him it is not for his judgement that I am come, but for his mercy._

_I am not expecting him to fully understand, and he never will, because what he ignores is that I, in some way, am trying to atone too._

_"The Gods make and do what they see fit, and I..." I am selfless, so it is not selfishness that stops me, but I am half soul and half divine wish; so beyond my purpose there remain emotions I have no power over, "...It is for you to judge."_

_We are two figures riding through the desert, him and I. Like ghosts, or like roaming souls- flickering behind his eyes, I see Karim, and I wonder where it was I failed._

_Where it was I lost my chance of reencarnation._

_A new night makes the desert aglow with silverlight and dormant spells, the celestial lover of Geb weaves a spiderweb of starshine around the dying figure on the sand._

_Incorruptible like a colossus, Rishid watches, eyes uncomprehending, still. A whisper escapes him, full of emotion, his voice betrays..._

_"Master Malik..."_

_I must shake my head, no, Rishid, that is not the man you would call Malik. You know him, but do not know his name, and he, he does not know it either, even if he owns it._

_"It is for you to judge..."_

_He looks at me, serenely enough to unsettle me when he says, "Master Shadi, he dies, doesn't he?", and I nod; and he closes his eyes and lets Fate in._

_He dismounts, he takes off his cloak, draping it over the naked body of a man with a beautiful tattoo of the Sun God Ra. He takes him in his arms, with ease, with care like he would hold a child and brushes sand off of a bony face._

.

.

On the seventh day, he wakes up.

****.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**: Shadi is still the narrator in this chapter._

_I had this idea a while ago, for another fic of mine, 'Story of an Encounter'... if Yami Malik didn't have the tattoo any more, he would be free. ... This chapter explores two questions: first, what if Yami Malik replaced his tattoo by another one he does not need to hide anymore? Second, what if it were in Rishid's power to decide if Yami Malik lives or dies? As you see, I think he'd have him live, because he is a good man._

What do you think?

I deeply thank you for reviewing!

_To "nobody": as you didn't leave me a username to reply to, I'll write a response to your awesome review here:_

_well... first things first thanks for making me notice the typo in last chapter. Fixed that immediately. As you said, "reflect current feelings and most recent experiences"... absolutely. You're also right in that we can't know whereto this fic is going, because I make it on the go, and it's absolutely reflecting personal experiences and thoughts. It initially began with the introduction, it was really the first I wrote, and it's supposed to be Ryou, though I didn't bother saying it because I'm planning to go back to that later. The relationship between Ryou and Bakura is really what had me writing this fic in the first place, and I'm doing Malik first only because it's in cronological order..._

_So, well, as you took time to write that beautiful review, I took mine to reply to it, and so shall be (:P ) for any other you write (I hope you do!). Stay well!_


	5. outcast

_Rishid_

* * *

><p><strong><em>outcast<em>**

.

He is halfway and he twists his hands in self-torment, and what-have-I-done, and how-could-I-haven't; and down in his realm a network of nameless tunnels look like stone but hide a thousand massacres,

Not _his _realm, if he must call things by their names, rather the realm of a family that he happened to belong to. It was too late to ever turn back from it, anyway, since he stood on the pillar for the most sublime values the clan of the Tomb Keepers had defended for millenia, and wasn't that ironic.

A line passed down from father to son in blood, and he had nothing like blood in common with...

... he will not go there: there, he's been too many times to reckon and the outcome was settled beforehand.

Arcane life breathes from the quiet square corridors; upwards, out of the main tunnel to the world of dutiful desert yonder; he has been busying himself to give the entrance to the lair of a legacy a more dignified aspect, and he has succeeded, and he cannot wait until sister Isis returns home and sees it.

She travels the world, you see, she was always meant for great wisdom, and he has always a kind thought to dedicate to her.

But now, there is no use for Rishid try to unravel his thoughts. He is a man that knows well the workings of his mind; and now, he is unsettled... Halfway.

Unchained, he lets his subconscious dash to every corner of existance while he sits on a more or less comfortable underground chamber of a living-room.

All of his making.

The in-coming light, the threat of a darkness reborn.

In the dim glow of the ancestral torchlight (for all his housewifelike penchant for redecorating the tomb-home; the torches he will not ever touch), each and every corridor mocks him in a way that he feels to scar. Because they are empty. Because the greatest shadow to ever haunt the lineage, once banished, is back...

He brought it back. He let it in; and, coiled, it draws to it all the precenses in the tomb as it sleeps...

... in the contiguous room.

Rishid himself is come to terms with his choice, but he cannot still grasp the full meaning of _it being back... _And he tucked him in like he once had his little brother he never called such; golden and sun-scorched like no member of the Ishtar clan has ever been... Because this man, this crazy (un)familiar man, is smiled upon by Ra, a deity Rishid reckons busies itself no more in this world. (Because he does believe some gods remain in the memory world they forged.)

He stands up-

-he walks to a threshold between two rooms and two eras, and that act drains him of will to judge.

Lying on the bleak sheets, he _is_ too golden, but Rishid would not say he is radiant, unlike his younger brother. Like he draws in the darkness in the angles, he also seems to borrow every light that dances around in the chamber, and so, lying motionless like that, the contrasts- the games of light and shadows- are enhanced and purified.

He does not know how long he remains just there, looking at features that somehow should not be so _blank_. Until his eyes flicker open-

-a shade of unexpected violet; and it is truly the seventh day when god decided to rest, and leave it all to mankind and-

their eyes meet, and Rishid ceases to draw analogies; and he is not sure of why that connection feels so _intense_...

The Other Malik does not speak at all; and to take in such resignation is, for Rishid, like drinking the sourest poison. He doesn't think that the game of cat and mouse that took place not too many months past, during the infamous tournament, has reverted. He is too good a man.

All he sees is raw nonchalance, and as the Other Malik's eyes close again, Rishid unadvertedly draws a distinction.

_Master Malik_ he has guarded since childhood. Even now, when he is away tasting the outer world like he always dreamed, the older Tomb Keeper worries with brotherly affection. Even now, when he knows that a simple word -master- marks the abyss of a bloodline between them.

As for this man... the man of eyes like a wary cobra. This man owns _nothing_ in this world, not even a name...

In a twisted way, him and that shadow child, they are both castaways. But Rishid has always had a thing for analogies.

So he will be Malik alone for Rishid, if that be the only act of kindness he is able to have towards him.

****.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**: Shadi is not narrating any more for now._

_Still exploring Rishid- so simple he's complex. What do you think?_

I must thank the awesome people who review :) And I must also thank those who read, and those who favorite this story or alert it. I appreciate it guys, and do know always that comments make me improve.

We'll be back to Ryou next chapter :)


	6. a king reborn

_._

* * *

><p><strong>a king reborn<strong>

.

At nights, when the moon is ancient and yellow like ageing paper, Ryou quietly steps up a thin iron ladder and goes up to the terrace.

The terrace, no one uses it much. There's clothes, tamely swaying with the wind, and there's a couple of chipped old beach chairs piled against a chimney. Then an expanse of roof, a small step, and then nothing, void space and below, many meters below, the city.

Ryou likes it because the drying clothes look like ghosts in the moonlight, and he always liked ghosts... at least the ones he pictures in his mind. He has the mind of a creator, you know, but, if life were a paper, he's having the most dreadful writer's block one can ever have. He knows the cause- it's because it's all so _quiet_.

He always promises himself he will not sulk, he will not brood; but he sometimes finds himself unable to keep his word. Coming up to the terrace helps because the wind is unbound, and the moon has always shone the same upon the Earth, and Ryou can indulge in a craving he has recently developed:

he closes his eyes to the colorful city below and the neon signs that shine like a carnival, and always, always, painfully liberatingly _always_, he sees the desert.

Glittering silver under pristine moonlight, cool, still.

Dead? No- undead; swarming with lost souls and sorcerers and charms, and not just any desert either.

Engraved with fire and pain and sweat, he can tell from the blue horizon the outline of ruins, and he's never actually _been_ there, in that daze-daydream, but he doesn't need to, because he _knows_ what that place is.

Once, it also was a city... a village, more accurately.

He might have even loved the people who lived there, but that's a vision or a memory he doesn't have. The Spirit may have had it, not Ryou. Ryou gets most things second-hand (and he can name so many things, like love or information, protection, _friends_.) But he doesn't complain because that's how it's always been.

Also it's happened to him, once or twice (he hopes it hasn't been more times already), he's woken up there on the terrace with a cheerful morning sun showering him in a warmth he never welcomes; light comes with that horrible sensation of vertigo he's had since he was a kid, as he looks at the city below, and it unnerves him, sort of, why doesn't he feel _that _when it's night and the fall looks even steeper...?

Right.

Because it's not the city he sees, but the most wonderful, unexplained mirage of them all: one in which he is tall and tan and muscular and bitter, and he isn't himself; but, in a way, deep down there where his core isn't rotting, he _is_ himself.

Raw, weathered, free.

If he could hear the Spirit, oh, _if he only could_, he knows he could tell beforehand his lines. He would look at him with that scorn he hated like the plague, smirk-smile at him like he was an idiot little child (which he wasn't, which he knew), and bask in his power when he thought Ryou did not sense him, and tell him, part endearingly part like a warning,

_In a past life, you were me..._

And Ryou, he's a pale teenager who lives on the sixth floor like anyone could... but on nights like those, the moon ancient and yellow like papyrus, he feels the pull at his soul inviting him to roam the desert once more, lawless, fearless, _King_.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**: This chapter is a personal favorite: I do believe Ryou is the reencarnation of the Thief King!_

**IMPORTANT QUESTION**: Would you rather have me put the names of the main character/s of the chapter before it begins? Would it make it clearer; or would it make it less... suspense-ful? Your opinion is everything!

.

Big shoutout to Scaevola, Cadens Stella and Hana Liatris! And to everyone else who reads/reviews! Love you guys ;_;

.

Surprise character next chapter! Stay tuned ;)


	7. revolution

_._

* * *

><p><strong>revolution<strong>

.

In a small flat in a quiet neighbourhood in greater Cairo, lives a young man called Malik. The view outside the window isn't the greatest; crammed apartments, no balconies. Lines hang from building to building, and the people dry their clothes in a mist of smog- but Malik, he doesn't see all of that. He sees the beauty alone, do you understand? The people, his neighbors; they're always complaining. But he doesn't- how can he?

He's got the wind, he's got the sun.

He's got... the freedom.

Every morning he gets up early and goes to work (he kept the motorcycle, only that now he _needs it_) as he rides from street to street to halfway across the city, by the Nile; and no one that knows the simple Malik Nam would ever _suspect_ he was once the head of the Rare Hunters (all Cairo knows the story, only that now, it's more of a urban legend) and...

No one knows any Malik Ishtar. Just a charming guide (tourists just _love_ him), who knows a lot more about history than anyone should, who has a family that lives deep in the desert, beduins, he says; fiction, they think, and there is no room in this world for underground vaults and inherited duties. Only routine and a salary at the end of the month, and wouldn't his father kill him if he ever knew he has a credit card?

And Malik, he's happy picking up the pieces to rebuild the Sphinx. Atoning. Convinced that once, once he will come back home to Rishid and show him that this time, he has no reason to be ashamed of him any longer.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**: Surprise! Didn't see THIS coming, right?_

Wrote this with the song 'Matloob Za3em' (A leader is needed) in mind, by the wonderful Egyptian band 'Cairokee'. Their album, _Matloob Za3em_, talks a lot about the Egyptian revolution last year; and they have this song, 'Sout Al Horeya' (The voice of freedom) that, as far as I know, is some sort of anthem.

This band always reminds me of Malik, the contemporary Arab feel, the gentle melodies... I don't know. I reccomend it. Look them up, they're in youtube- a must listen for any YGO fan ;)

.

A big shoutout to my reviewers, who I'm very much in love with. I'm sorry if I'm a bit random, but right now it's 3.00 am and I'm going to bed... good night!

And review =P


	8. up the steps, out of the basement

_._

* * *

><p><strong>up the steps, out of the basement<strong>

.

He is a man of the world... although one might need to double-take him as he, pale and strong and elegant, sweeps the entrance to the game shop.

"Boy! You're holding it all the wrong way!" his grandfather chides, repositioning the broom in his hands, "You've this ability to turn _everything_ into a challenge, haven't you?"

He laughs. He does, he knows he does.

"I'm sorry, I can't remember the last time I did this..."

They both share a minute of silence.

"No," he concedes, although no one spoke, "You're right. I've never done this before."

His grandfather smirks. "Score!"

Time may pass, or it may not, and he might have returned to this world hours ago, or minutes ago, or millennia ago and never left-

but he knows with his heartbeat it's been precisely two years and three months since he walked through a gate bright with the promise of an afterlife,

because every second his blood pulsed he thought how could he have an afterlife when he had hardly _lived-_

because the Gods heard their child recoil and Maat passed her judgement again...

(And the basement of the game shop had been as dark and damp and homely as any womb as he awoke and climbed up the stairs; and Grandpa was still bright and cheerful and young inside and

Yugi is still at school.)

...

(Or not.)

And an old man smiles at an old pharaoh, a teenager is a block away, and they both think at the same time that he's in for a... they're both tempted to call it a _surprise_, but it wouldn't be the best choice of words. In the attic of their hearts, they always knew something extraordinary would pull a soul together again, some day, some how.

.

Yugi... double takes him. Then it happens in a flash- he smiles, shakes his head, extends his arm, shakes the hand of someone who once ruled a kingdom.

"Hey, Other Me..." he says, grinning his disbelief, "...is that a broom?"

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**: Sorry for the long wait. It was hard to write_.

Two years have passed already.

Thanks for the reviews, guys. I'm thrilled you like the story so far :) I love you =)


	9. the voice of freedom

_._

* * *

><p><strong>the voice of freedom<strong>

.

It's Friday and he finishes early, because Fridays are not busy days, and he likes to be alone. He takes his motorcycle and puts on the black helmet, and Malik Nam is just another man trying to squirm past the traffic jams and carts and street vendors, trying not to stand out because he wants the piastres in his pocket to remain in his pockets.

He drives past hotels and gardens that expose, through exuberance and luxury, the open veins of a country that struggles with transformation, trying to catch a wisp of a wind of change. Malik sings _Sout Al Horeya_ with a passion if he's asked to, but he is still juggling with his own private revolution to have the heart to become involved in a public one. He looks forward with determination, at the road ahead, and pretends he doesn't see the crammed slums and the people that wander the dirt streets like lost souls. Pretends there is no filth and no discarded propaganda flying around, only sand, sand like there was when he was a child that snook out to watch the stars over the Valley of Kings, many kilometers away from Cairo and social injustice.

The driveway is less flashy in the outskirts, flanked by ivory-colored houses, protected by ivory-colored mosques.

The Nile flows green and sovereign towards the delta, that fans out on its way to the sea shortly after the city finishes.

He takes off his shoes, rolls up the cuff of his trousers. Gets into the water, and his toes sink in the soft, dark lime.

.

.

It's spring and he finishes early, because the world outside the tomb is alive and the heat is still bearable, and he walks up the stone steps and leaves in silence, because he never speaks much. He has too much to learn to bother with words, words are always empty.

The horse they got in Luxor waits for him with sweet patience as he quickly checks the saddle and mounts, and he is off, cutting through the wind like a genie of the sands, like a figure out of the Arabian Tales.

_Inside the tomb, Rishid sets a cup of tea before a familiar stranger, and Shadi takes it and nods._

_"You've outdone your duty," the man of the desert says, "Now, you are a Tomb Keeper, and a Keeper of Souls, too."_

_Rishid only smiles, humble._

The sun sets behind his back, and Dark Malik looks to the east. The Nile and the riverbank beyond are becoming aflame with sundown; scents rise, a symphony of crickets and waterfowl. All around him, life, even if he cannot always see it.

Life.

He hardly knows himself any longer, although he is still calming down. He stays there until moonlight makes it all silvery and indigo and enticing, like a distant memory he has: the Valley of Kings awash with starlight.

He hears his horse trampling in the shallows, stirring awake fireflies that drift skywards out of the lush reeds. Even in the growing shadows of the night, life.

Dark Malik sighs, transfixed.

He takes off his papyrus sandals, looks up at the moon. Gets into the water, and his toes sink in the soft, dark lime.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**_****_: _****_Fast update! My muses are lovely._

I don't mean to offend people from El Cairo for talking about things like dirt and petty theft. I only want to show what life would be like for our characters. I guess my only excuse is that I also live in a 3rd world country and know what I'm talking about :P I was, though, inspired by the movie 'Slumdog millonaire' and the Egyptian band Cairokee, which I have already mentioned (see chapter 7)'.

Thanks for the beautiful reviews, guys :)


	10. abode

_._

* * *

><p><strong>abode<strong>

.

His desk is a mess of tubes of acrylic paint and oils and markers and paper and cloth and wire and cotton (and clay); and it looks untidy but it isn't, it couldn't, because it's his sanctuary.

He's not got any photos, but, inside a large glass frame, he's set out three Duel Monsters cards-

_He doesn't use them any more because he doesn't duel any more, but if he did, he still wouldn't use them because they're very precious, and very meaningful, and very much alive._

Dark Sanctuary

(home)

Dark Necrofear

(love)

Diabound

(Ryou doesn't remember ever buying that card- it was never there for any tournament, still, still, when the Spirit left that card showed up and-

-it was a very powerful card. (a powerful memory? it came with smelling sand and dirt and riding on horseback and plundering villages by the Nile... it came with feeling the desert heat against his scars and salty sweat on his lips;

the forever longing for freedom-

for revenge)

_avenge us_

Before he trapped the card between glass panels he dueled with Diabound only once, against Yugi, and he won. It horrified him enough to ask for forgiveness (because somehow he knew that Diabound was a card that was not meant to win)

Before he trapped the card between glass panels he touched it only rarely, and it wrapped him in a web of sensations belonging to another world, another time, another person (or not)

Another life.

But Ryou smiles the fondest when he looks at, precisely, that card. The one card he never bought.

Diabound.

Family.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**_****_: _****_I can't imagine Ryou not being an artist. Interesting occupation for the reincarnation of a tomb robber._

Thank you for the support! (I'm a bit emo now, so I need it... I am SO glad you all are liking the story well!)

Till next chapter..(what character would you like to read?) I love you guys :)


	11. wheel of fortune

_._

* * *

><p><strong>wheel of fortune<strong>

It's a lovely spring afternoon, and four friends, in their last year of school already, are talking on the way to a Game Shop.

"I don't _know_, man," Joey complains, "…and if I knew, I'm broke like Kaiba's pride," (Tristan snorts), "Can't do much."

"You'll think of something," Tea reassures. She's always the one telling them things like that, even if she knows she'll have to waitress until she can pay for the plane ticket to South America (you say salsa, you say samba, you say tango and her eyes shimmer like a constellation)…

"And don't worry," Tristan taunts Joey, "I'll employ you when you end up living in the sewers under Gotham City…"

"Why you punk…" the blond teen seethes, "I'll _see_ to it that you choke on your damned microchips in your sleep…"

They spar.

Yugi chuckles and blows a chewing gum bubble. Tristan is going abroad to study IT, and they all know that Yugi will follow in his father and grandfather's steps. Unearthening empires and entering the names of many forgotten kings of old into history…

…while helping run the Game Shop.

Atem waves at them as they come in. He doesn't care about the future- if Yugi travels around, he thinks he may accompany him, but he is too old not to know that some things just can't be planned in advance.

That is why he got a job as soon as he became used to Domino again, and now he spends all his mornings helping train horses for races. Just like back in Egypt, he thinks proudly, but he isn't the King of Games just because, and he has been already asked if he is interesting in playing polo.

He doesn't know yet. He may accept.

(It sounds like a challenge.)

Joey is always teasing him, now that the once-a-Pharaoh keeps his colorful hair up in a ponytail and wears military-green trousers of tough, resistant fabric, and smells like the outdoors. Even when, like now, he is way up high a flimsy ladder trying to decide if those old editions of Monopoly should still be on sale.

"You should totally let us come with you some day, man. Maybe we can even play Duel Monsters on horseback…?" the blond suggests, and they all look at him.

"Joey… are you feeling well?" Yugi asks, puzzled, and Joey snorts when they all begin to laugh.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**_****_: _****_Atem and horses. Yes. Totally see that happening._

I'm sorry for the long wait. My muses were on strike. They wanted a payrise. Negotiating with their trade union took forever. (Seriously speaking now, my writer's block was/is phenomenal. I need you guys to stick with me.)

(thus sorry for the short sweet filler chapter.)

(if you like Hetalia, I wrote a China-centered humor oneshot called 'Year of the Dragon'. That seemed to begin to chase the writer's block away.)

Thanks to everyone awesome that reviewed. Specially to dear Cadens Stella, who always writes sweet little things that make me fuzzy inside; and ilovemanicures for her deep comments :)


	12. Bedouin

_._

* * *

><p><strong>Bedouin<strong>

It is the goddesses of fate that lead him to encounter her like this, in a place as dusty, a place as

unfitting.

Although he cannot say for the life of him what that meeting should be like, because he is honest in saying that he doesn't remember anything of the last time he saw her, but that it was windy and dark and ominous,

and it's been so long since things were like that. Years have passed. Two, or three, he cannot tell for sure. Now it's sun and sand and glorious horizon and glorious silence and glorious afternoons by the Nile. And he isn't a coward, he thinks, only that he… isn't exactly sure. What he is to her. What she is to him. How it is he should handle it.

Rishid's come with him only so far, and the Western Desert is mute with the passing of time in all but that strange little household he is in, a nook of Bedouins today, a hideout for Tuareg bandits tomorrow (one can never tell with the peoples of the desert);

strange it is to him that he relates. He likes it there but for the scent of riverwater in the air.

He likes it there, as he waits for her sitting on rough camel skin, drinking black black coffee with an age-weathered patriarch that tells him stories of genies and the Quran. Eating dates and breathing incense. It makes him remember a past life he didn't have.

She arrives when the afternoon is making the sun bleed red on the barren sand, and she comes to them like a queen of the sands, dressed in black silks and gold ornaments and she could be coming from Saba for all that Dark Malik can tell as he toys with the bone of the last date he ate and hums a folk song with voice raspy from never singing, never speaking.

"_Masaa el kheer_" the patriarch says, helping her dismount the pureblood stallion, and she looks so gracious Dark Malik can't honestly say he remembered her like that, graceful like the goddess of the old times,

Isis.

Her walking towards him comes with the faint sounding of bells and rustles of silk and fine metal, and when she takes off her delicate veil she expects him to do the same,

and so he takes off his white veil and head piece,

and her eyes widen ever so slightly; and her parted lips draw in a silent gasp. He thinks he knows that it means she is surprised, but why wouldn't she be.

"Allah be with you, sister," he says, and the patriarch leaves them to the breezy solitude of the camel-skin tent, incense, and bleeding sun on the horizon.

.

.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN**_****_: _****_Desert sunsets. I'll never grow weary of writing these._

I'm such a great Fearshipper I can't believe I've not written this chapter before. Still, I don't know if this will be romantic. I don't think so. I'd like to keep this story romance-free. What say you? *quotes Aragorn*

I'm desperate about Coroner's Court. I'm writing and writing but... there's something missing. But I'm working on it. Honestly.


	13. Bedouin II

**Bedouin II**

He thinks it's because the sun left a peach afterthought of a glow on the horizon sky, that the world looks so soft and so simple,

but it's also because everything looks pretty after the sun goes down.

She might have always been pretty, too, although he cannot tell for sure. Back then he didn't worry about such trivialities, he wonders if he does now. She's studying him more deliberately than he studies her, sees her struggling.

"It has been a while, hasn't it, Isis?"

He's meant to say _sister_. He's new to not being able to predict himself.

"Why are you here?" she asks with much insolence and much vexed, too, "Rishid told me my brother waited for me. Why _you_?... Why _here_?"

"Aren't I your brother too? You hurt me," he says, and something of his old self stirs beneath all this weighing layers of humanity. The thrill. He's always loved it.

She's guarded.

"Malik doesn't know you're here, does he," she whispers, but it's not a question but a statement, and he shrugs.

"I don't care what he knows," he answers and he is truthful.

"Only Rishid?"

He may have nodded at the sun that's setting, not meeting her eyes. Serious.

Guarded.

And she knows, then, like that, that things have changed. In the most whimsical way that destiny could have ever fathomed.

"…then come inside. And we can drink tea… brother."

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: _It's cute, in a dusty, Egyptian kind of way._

Thanks for bearing with me so long! I have a couple next chapters almost done, too. They focus mostly on Ryou. Ideas for Yuugi and company will be welcome.

I love you guys =) Thanks for being there!


	14. back home

**IMPORTANT: **

**I'm CHANGING MY PENNAME to**

**[ witchfingers ]**

**be alert!**

* * *

><p><strong>back home<strong>

When the phonecall ends, Ryou is disappointed. He knows he shouldn't be. He knows how hard his father tries to… _try_. Paperwork is paperwork (is time consuming) and if his migration and customs stuff isn't in order, what can he really do about it?

Ryou gave up on trying to get his father a long while ago, thinks he could do nonchalant if he focuses, but he feels disappointed all the same. So he brews himself up green tea with orange and honey; picks up some historic novel and gets comfortable on the couch.

_A couple of days_, his father said, _To deal with this troublesome paperwork, son. Then I'll be home._

_I promise._

.

Ryou recognizes the knocking on the door because, although his father has keys to the apartment, he never comes in unannounced. Never sneaks on him.

But he doesn't recognize the second pair of footsteps that come in as he lies on the couch finishing a novel. He only hears the second person because he is so used to being in silence.

He wants to finish the paragraph, but then he hears them settle down some luggage, without talking, and he becomes curious (and why wouldn't his father tell him if he's had somebody come over? He could have at least cleaned the place a bit.) He slings his legs off the couch, forgets the slippers lying there…

"Hi dad," he calls, testing, "…Welcome back…!" He tries to add some enthusiasm. Some strange mixture rings faded and bittersweet.

His father comes out of the kitchen, looking won over by the jet lag. But there are dark rings under his eyes that could be something else, Ryou notices with a frown, but his father smiles at him.

An honest smile, of the kind that Ryou missed.

"Hi, son…" He walks over to the white-haired young man, who's always a little different than he remembered. Lays a hand affectionately on his bony shoulder. "I, uh… I'm home…"

And Tou Bakura feels that something breaks inside him when his son's eyes soften and he feels _so guilty._ "God, I missed you," he says, pulling the wispy frame into a hug that comes late for many years.

Ryou hugs him back, he can't say it doesn't feel awkward. But he doesn't know that these days, his father has learned an unsuspected thing or two about him, and a set of russet-colored eyes follow the scene from the threshold of the kitchen.

.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**

the world is about to end...

Next chapter will explain it all, you'll see.

I decided to name Bakura's father 'Tou' because it sounded nice and cozy, and also because it's the first sillable for 'Touzoku' Not a bloodline there, keep looking somewhere else *snickers*.

Review, please? I like to know what you think about what I write :)


	15. nomad

_Tou Bakura_

* * *

><p><strong>nomad<strong>

Dates? He doesn't want dates.

… Silks, tobacco, pastries? He doesn't want silk, or tobacco, or pastries. No, _shokran_, he already has a camel, has a place to spend the night.

Trinkets, antique jewelry? What for? It was years since there was a woman in his life. And he doesn't buy jewelry any more (he remembers last time with painful exactitude, the apex of the vortex of his life spiraling downwards, exactly ten years ago).

There is always a bitterness behind his eyes now (since then): weariness mixed with the desert dust his glasses don't manage to keep away.

And now (since then) he doesn't like the market place. Not because he is foreign, or because he is an archaeologist (and some things he unearthens seem to be still alive, like ghost-mirages in the sand)… not because he is weary of the folkish magic of turbans and rags full of arabesques. Simply because he is alone.

He knows the place like the back of his hand, every street and dirt alley, and he is sweaty and filthy from his last dig, and hungry and tired of the strong sun, but he could ignore it all if he could share the day with someone… the only _someone_ he's left. He could forget it all. To start anew.

And he's tried so many times already.

But something always snaps.

But he keeps on trying.

And this time around he's called again, and he will soon be flying back home. Only one more night in Cairo to put his things in order, and he'll be flying back home.

Back home. To try again.

He sighs the knot in his stomach away (of hunger and nostalgia), pushing through tides of people coming and going- in a blur, he's seen in a blink straw hats, kaffiyehs, women in yashmaks, in black, in colors, carts, a donkey… children, laughter, scents (memories?)

In the middle of a tiled square, a sequestered nook in the intersection of seven alleyways, a Moorish fountain springs water oblivious to the heat,

and people are coming and going (forever),

he stops and looks around (he hardly does, but this square isn't familiar, and the scientist in him is vaguely exploring the architecture, the people.)

A wave of passers-by scatters into the alleys, clearing the tan-colored ground, the tan-colored space;

and someone is sitting on the border of the fountain that's tiled with lapis-blue tessera.

Hunched over, head bowed, elbows resting on knees, rare-colored locks hiding his face.

But the archaeologist could recognize him anywhere, he thinks in deepest disconcert, and he doesn't notice how they are suddenly alone in that eternally bustling city.

And he doesn't notice that the clothes could be timeless and are all wrong, that the skin began to tan in a way pale skin never tans.

He stays there, nailed to the ground. How could he be there- of all people, of all places, a chance encounter? His brain is failing to process what he is seeing.

"_What_?"

The one sitting asks, caustic, irritated even, and a set of rust-colored eyes drink the archaeologist up in an evanescent moment.

He is surprised to find himself slightly disillusioned, beyond the repulsion that surfaces with the eye-contact.

He isn't surprised to find that he isn't berating himself. For mistaking a stranger with his son. Because he has encountered the occult many times in many ancient tombs and dig sites.

"Who are you?"

When he asks that, he thinks it might be a djinn. _Allahu akbar,_ his mind recites the traditional formula on its own accord, out of force of use, _God is most great._

He gets something like a smirk in return, but he cannot be sure because shadows fall on the face of his interlocutor. Shadows. They flock to him like tame little rags in the breeze.

"A thief" (it sounds so simple) "I, asked you something, too," he is answered.

He shakes his head (perhaps, he's just dreaming.) "It's nothing."

The man with the russet eyes shrugs. "If you say so," and he doesn't seem to care or to be able to speak without sarcasm poisoning his words.

(things like these only happen in dreams, after all)

He reconsiders. He swallows a lump. "You look like my son."

He gets a ghost of a chuckle as a response, a shake of pure-colored locks- the thief looks, as if he'd only just understood a good joke, looks like _how didn't I see it before._

"I know," is all he says.

.

.

Tou Bakura retells it hazy and Arabian, but he knows his son has always had a great imagination.

Ryou sits on the couch, eyes steely, he followed the story and now, he's speechless.

A set of russet eyes followed the story too, unblinking and distant, and a man that once was a tomb robber leans against the doorsill of the living room of a place he may have called home seven years ago.

And the three of them, lost in thought in the afterglow of Tou Bakura's words, wonder what life will be like from now on; and, somehow, if they close their eyes they can see the desert.

.


End file.
